The Narbonnese forms the proconsul’s basis of operation, but it is partly composed of populations recently subjugated, whose fidelity is as yet doubtful. Rome has in Gaul allied peoples, but they have lost their preponderance. The different states, divided among themselves by intestine rivalries, offer an easy prey to the enemy; but let the Roman army come to occupy their territory in a permanent manner, and thus wound their feelings of independence, and all the warlike youth will unite, eager to begin a struggle full of perils for the invaders. Cæsar is obliged, therefore, to act with extreme prudence, to favour the ambition of some, repress the encroachments of others, and spare the susceptibility of all, taking care not to wound their religion, their laws, or their manners; he is obliged at the same time to draw a part of his forces from the country he occupies, and obtain thence men, subsidies, and provisions. The greatest difficulty experienced by the commander of an army operating in a country the good-will of which he seeks to conciliate, is to enable his troops to live without exhausting it, and to assure the welfare of his soldiers without exciting the discontent of the inhabitants. “To seek to call,” says the Emperor Napoleon I. in his Mémoires, “a nation to liberty and independence; to desire that a public spirit should form in the midst of it, and that it should furnish troops; and at the same time to take from it its principal resources, are two contradictory ideas, and to conciliate them is the province of talent.”[559]
Thus, to fight between two and three hundred thousand Helvetii and Germans, to hold in dominion eight millions of Gauls, and to maintain the Roman province—such is the task which Cæsar has undertaken, and, to carry it out, he has as yet only at hand a single legion. What means will he have to overcome all these obstacles? His genius and the ascendency of civilisation over barbarism.
Campaign against the Helvetii.
II. Cæsar starts from Rome towards the middle of March, 696, and arrives in eight days at Geneva. Immediately the Helvetii, who had appointed their rendezvous on the banks of the Rhine towards the 24th of March, the day of the equinox, ask his permission to cross Savoy, with the intention of going to establish themselves in Saintonge. He adjourns his answer to the 8th of April, and employs the fifteen days thus gained in fortifying the left bank of the Rhone, from Geneva to the Pas-de-l’Ecluse, in raising troops in the Roman province, and in renewing the old bonds of friendship with the Burgundians,[560] who will soon furnish him with men, horses, and provisions.
By rendering the passage of the Rhone impossible, and by binding to his cause the peoples who occupied the whole course of the Saône, from Pontailler to near Trévoux, he had cut off from the Helvetii the road to the south, and thrown difficulties in their way towards the west. Still, these persisted none the less in their design; they made an arrangement with the people of Franche-Comté, to whom the passage of the Pas-de-l’Ecluse belonged, to debouch by that defile into the plains of Ambérieux and on the plateau of the Dombes. They could thus arrive at the Saône, pass it peaceably or by force, proceed into the valley of the Loire by crossing the mountains of Charolais, and penetrate thence into Saintonge.
As soon as Cæsar was aware of this project, he immediately decided on his course of action: he foresaw that a long time would elapse before the Helvetii effected a passage across the unquiet countries of so many hosts; he reckons that an agglomeration of 368,000 individuals, men, women, and children, carrying three months’ provisions in wagons, would be slow to move; he repairs to the Cisalpine, raises two legions there, sends to Aquileia for the three who were in winter quarters there, and, crossing the Alps again, arrives, two months afterwards, at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône, on the heights of Sathonay. He learns that the Helvetii have been employed during twenty days in crossing the Saône between Trévoux and Villefranche, but that a part of them still remain on the left bank; seizes the opportunity, attacks the latter, defeats them, and thus diminishes the number of his adversaries by one-fourth; then, crossing the Saône, he follows during fifteen days the mass of the Helvetian emigration, which was advancing towards the sources of the Bourbince. As he finds himself in want of provisions, he turns off from his road, and marches towards Bibracte (Mont Beuvray), the citadel and principal town of the Burgundians. This march to the right leads the Helvetii to believe that he is afraid of encountering them; they then march back, and attack him unexpectedly; a great battle is fought, and, with his four old legions only, Cæsar gains the victory. The immigration, already considerably diminished by the battle of the Saône, no longer counts more than 130,000 individuals, who make their retreat towards the country of Langres. The Roman general does not pursue them; he remains three days burying the dead and attending to the wounded. But his influence is already so great, that, to deprive the wreck of the vanquished army of provisions, he has only to give orders to the peoples whose territory they cross. Deprived of all resources, the fugitives discontinue their march, and make their submission. He hastens to overtake them towards Tonnerre. When he arrives in the midst of them, he adopts a generous policy, and gains, by his generous behaviour, those whom he had subjugated by his arms.
There was in the Helvetic conglomeration a people renowned for their valor, the Boii; Cæsar permits the Burgundians to receive them into the number of their fellow-citizens, and give them lands at the confluence of the Allier and the Loire. As to the other barbarians, with the exception of 6,000 who had attempted to withdraw from the capitulation by flight, he obliges them to return to their country, dismisses them without ransom, instead of selling them as slaves, and thus drawing from them a considerable profit, according to the general usage of that period.[561] By preventing the Germans from establishing themselves in the countries abandoned by the immigration, he made a calculation of interest secondary to a high political sentiment, and foresaw that Helvetia, by its geographical position, was destined to be a bulwark against invasion from the north, and that, then as now, it was important for the power seated on the Rhone and the Alps to have on its eastern frontiers a friendly and independent people.[562]
Campaign against Ariovistus.
III. The victory gained near Bibracte has, at one blow, restored the prestige of the Roman arms. Cæsar has become the arbitrator of the destinies of a part of Gaul: all the peoples comprised between the Marne, the Rhone, and the mountains of Auvergne, obey him.[563] The Helvetii have returned into their country; the Burgundians have re-conquered their ancient preponderance. The assembly of Celtic Gaul, held with his permission at Bibracte, invokes his protection against Ariovistus, and, to the far north, the people of Trèves hasten to denounce to him a threatened invasion of Germans. It had always been a part of the policy of the Republic to extend its influence by going to the succour of oppressed peoples. Cæsar could not fail to regulate his conduct upon this principle. Not only did it concern him to deliver the Gauls from a foreign yoke, but he sought to deprive the Germans of the possibility of settling on the banks of the Saône, and thus threatening the Roman province, and perhaps Italy itself.
Before having recourse to arms, Cæsar, who, during his consulship, had caused Ariovistus to be declared the ally and friend of the Roman republic, undertook to try upon him the means of persuasion. He sent to demand an interview, and received only a haughty reply. Soon, informed that, three days before, the German king has crossed his frontiers at the head of a numerous army, and that, on another side, the hundred cantons of the Suevi are threatening to cross the Rhine towards Mayence, he starts from Tonnerre in haste to go forward to meet him. When he arrives near Arc-en-Barrois, he learns that Ariovistus is marching with all his troops upon Besançon. He then turns to the right, anticipates him, and takes possession of that important place. No doubt, at the news of the march of the Roman army, Ariovistus slackened his own, and halted in the neighbourhood of Colmar.